Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Trade Support Loans Bill 2014 and the Trade Support Loans (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2014. It is a great pleasure to start on a positive note, and that is that the members opposite are supporting this bill. I pay tribute to members opposite for supporting what is an excellent bill to give young men and women a fantastic opportunity. Although we have heard lots of complaints, whingeing and nitpicking—all of which is unfounded—about our proposal, the core issue is that Labor's Tools For Your Trade program was simply not working. There was $5½ thousand for tools with little accountability, but most fundamentally there was no incentive to finish an apprenticeship. Labor knew it was not working, because the drop-out rate was 50 per cent. One in two young men and women commencing an apprenticeship in this country under the previous federal government did not complete their apprenticeship. So what did Labor do? Unfortunately, it did nothing.

I know earlier in question time the Leader of the Opposition holding up our Real solutions booklet; and, yes, it is in great contrast to the no solutions we have heard from members opposite ever since we handed down our budget. The trade support loans are a real solution to what has been, frankly, a very poorly managed scheme in terms of encouraging young men and women to complete their apprenticeships.

What we are doing under our trade support loans is extremely significant. Not only are we offering a loan of up to $20,000; we are also offering a bonus of up to $4,000 for those young men and women who finish their apprenticeships. This is a very significant incentive to encourage apprentices to finish their courses. This will deliver enormous benefits for the people of Corangamite, my electorate that I so proudly represent, and for people around the nation. This is such an important initiative to combat youth unemployment.

If we look at Labor's record, it is unfortunately very dismal. We are focusing very much on building a strong and prosperous economy and turning around Labor's appalling record in unemployment—200,000 more unemployed under Labor, 130,000 manufacturing jobs lost under Labor, 519,000 jobs lost in small business. The teenage full-time unemployment rate—that is persons aged 15 to 19 and looking for full-time work—went from 19.6 per cent in November 2007 to 27.3 per cent in September 2013. Youth unemployment—that is young people aged 15 to 24—increased by some 55,000 under the previous, Labor government. So we are strongly focused on supporting young men and women getting to work and we are very proud of this program.

Of course, that is supplemented by a very important work for the dole program which has been embraced in my electorate and in the greater Geelong region because we are determined not to let young men and women languish on the couch. We want to do everything we can to get them into work, to build their confidence, to build their skills. We have some other very important programs: our Job Commitment Bonus, our relocation assistance for long-term unemployed, and of course our very strong focus on earning or learning.

Locally in Corangamite we have announced our $155 million growth fund. There is $30 million for regional infrastructure, because we know how important it is to invest in the regions—in rural and regional Australia—to get those jobs moving. We have already seen 100,000 jobs created since the beginning of this year. So we are on track for seeing the growth in employment that we committed to.

In relation to the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund we spent a number of months negotiating with Alcoa and they put another $5 million into that fund. That is moving quickly to develop hundreds of new jobs, particularly in advanced manufacturing. We had a jobs fair funded by the Australian government with some wonderful partners: the Geelong Advertiser, BayFM/K-Rock, Deakin University, Enterprise Geelong and the City of Greater Geelong. We all came together to hold the jobs fair. It was such an important initiative for people right across the Geelong region, looking at opportunities and embracing new skills. There was great and positive momentum at the fair and it was a really wonderful couple of days. I particularly want to commend everyone who participated in the fair and the many job seekers who came along looking for new opportunities.

In the debate we have heard so far I note that Labor has not addressed one key issue: you cannot eat tools. The Tools For Your Trade program, yes, paid for tools, but there was no money to pay for TAFE fees. How do young apprentices pay for rent, pay for food and pay for public transport to get to work? Our Trade Support Loans program gives young men and women the funding they need to get through their apprenticeship. It is a very, very significant difference, because we are determined to reverse the dramatic drop-out rates in apprenticeships, where we see young men and women not completing their apprenticeship.

Of course, this is in contrast to some of the harebrained schemes that we have seen under the previous federal government, where we saw money thrown left, right and centre with the promise of jobs and no delivery. There are some very good examples in my electorate. There was $34 million for Ford promised by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who came down to Geelong in January 2012 promising 300 new jobs. Seven months later there was some 330 jobs lost. That was $34 million just thrown away like that. There was $40 million for Alcoa, promising long-term, sustainable jobs. Two years ago Labor promised the world with this $40 million and now we see Alcoa closing. Alcoa has given its workers very little notice and as a result there are many, many people in my community who are extremely worried. We are determined to invest in long-term, sustainable jobs. That is the key difference between this government and the previous government. We are very, very proud of what we are doing for apprenticeships.

We are also very proud of our positive focus on jobs in our region. I see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry is in the chamber. We had a wonderful visit to Geelong recently. We went out to Ford. We embrace the fact that there are 490 people continuing to work for Ford in Geelong at the proving ground and at the research and development centre in Geelong. They are the jobs of the future. That is what we are focused on—smart manufacturing, next-generation manufacturing, embracing skills and innovation. We got into a wind tunnel. There is plenty of hot air on the other side of the chamber, but the parliamentary secretary and I saw the wonderful technological advancements going on at the proving ground. It was great to remind the people of Geelong that we have great skills, great energy and we have a great, great future.

I do want to make a small note in relation to the member for Perth's contribution to this debate. She was speaking about the pressures that hairdressers are under and she made reference to the fact that in Perth hairdressers are being forced to pay $2,000 for a pair of hair straighteners. Either there has been a terrible case of inflation in Perth for the member for Perth has got her numbers seriously wrong. I do suspect that it is the latter, because in the local hair supply shop in Geelong West I visited recently professional hair straighteners were available for around $300. So let us not cause unnecessary anxiety for hairdressers.

We understand that the cost of getting the skills that these young men and women need is very important. As I mentioned, Trade Support Loans will provide up to $20,000 over four years to support apprentices when they need financial assistance the most. The loans will be repayable when the individual's income reaches the Higher Education Loan Program threshold. At the moment that threshold is around $53,000. The loans are flexible to meet the needs of each individual. For instance, an apprentice can opt in for six months only to buy their tools, or they could save up their first year's payments to buy a second-hand vehicle then opt out of further payments. Or they can just take the full loan to cover living expenses. It is flexible because we understand that different apprentices in different trades have different needs.

Let me just correct one other issue. Recently the Greens claimed that it would take apprentices some 50 years to repay the loan. Well, we all know that when it comes to numbers the Greens cannot count—they have very little economic credibility and this is yet one more example. I will correct the record. The average time to pay off the full loan amount with the 20 per cent completion deduction will be some five years after repayments start or eight years after completing their apprenticeship. As stated in our election policy, Trade Support Loans will be repayable at the same income thresholds as university HELP loans.

We are very proud of this election commitment. This is an election commitment that will commence on 1 July 2014. It is estimated that it will deliver some $1.9 billion in loans over four years. This is so positive for young men and women, for workplace productivity, for my electorate of Corangamite and for apprentice schemes all around the nation. I commend this bill to the House.

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